Real men wear pink…

This article pays homage to a place where sense of fashion coicides with uncompromising rugby; Stade Francais, the team which sneers at suggestions of effeminacy. Any players who can go into a rolling maul wearing this kit

deserve respect.

Normally rugby teams huff and puff onto the pitch looking incredibly butch and rugged, wearing this sort of shirt.

Sensible, isn’t it? The nearest the English teams get to exotic are the wonderful old Harlequins strip

 although an honourable (or is that dishonourable?) mention should be made for the Gloucester kit of a couple of seasons back, the side panels of which seemed inspired either by Liz Hurley’s infamous safety pin dress or some sort of bondage theme.

So it’s across the channel we must go to encounter the truly daring kit, the shirts which only a real man could get away with wearing.

 Now it has to be said that Stade isn’t without its share of pulchritude, which adds to the general pleasure and means that the Cochrane household is filled with shouts of joy when it’s a Heineken Cup weekend and “Stade are on the box!”

 I mean, who wouldn’t want to spend a couple of hours in the televisual company of these guys?

Imagine them in this kit and it gets even better. This season they have excelled themselves, opting for a home strip which features Andy Warhol type images of   Blanche de Castille, the wife of Louis VIII.

 

No, your eyes don’t deceive you.

 

Pretty, eh?

Other sports please take note: wearing pink makes a man neither gay nor effeminate. Try spouting that argument in a Paris bar after the match…